"Fudan Information Star" was successfully launched aboard the Ceres-1 Y12 carrier rocket
On May 31, 2024, the "Fudan Information Star" was successfully launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on board the Ceres-1 Y12 carrier rocket.
This communication remote sensing satellite weighs 52 kilograms and will operate at an orbital altitude of 535 kilometers. It is a low-orbit satellite. It is led by the Shanghai Low-orbit Satellite Communication and Application Engineering Technology Research Center and Shanghai Low-Orbit Satellite Communication Technology, led by the team of Academician Jin Yaqiu of Fudan University. Collaborative Innovation Center, jointly developed with Beijing Aurora Star Technology Co., Ltd. AES Company, a subsidiary of the 805th Institute of the Eighth Aerospace Academy, is responsible for satellite manufacturing and launch.
What is the use of "Fudan Information Star"? What are the highlights?
"While in orbit, we will carry out long-duration communication verification work between satellites and satellites, build a 'laser communication on-orbit experimental platform', and verify the feasibility of building long-duration laser communication links in orbit and serving as a backbone communication network." Fudan University Zhang Junwen, a researcher at the School of Information, said that the main goal of the "Fudan Information Star" is to promote the formation of a closed loop of "satellite ground station-satellite-satellite-ground-space integration" data, carry out collaborative verification and system testing, and further promote the aerospace information foundation of Fudan University Development of scientific and applied research.
According to reports, the satellite is oriented to my country's future space infrastructure and strategic needs, focusing on exploring inter-satellite laser communications and satellite optical remote sensing, as well as satellite ground station reception and AI big data fusion processing.
"Our team, led by Academician Jin Yaqiu, focuses on remote sensing imaging, communication and sensing technology, and has done a lot of ground verification before. This opportunity to participate in on-orbit experimental verification provides us with a good research platform." Zhang Junwen said.
"'Fudan Information Star' is also an experimental star. Some new materials and new technologies will be verified on the star. We are very much looking forward to it," said Zhan Yiqiang, a researcher at the School of Information at Fudan University.
The vast majority of solar cell panels on satellites use gallium arsenide. Its advantage is high conversion efficiency, but its disadvantage is that the material itself and the preparation process are very expensive. Even for a small satellite, the solar cell panel must be at least 3 square meters. , the cost reaches one million yuan. There are currently two alternative technology paths. One is to use crystalline silicon, but crystalline silicon is particularly afraid of high-energy radiation in space; the other is to develop new photovoltaic technology.
"We are studying new photovoltaic technology. If it succeeds, the cost of one square meter will be about a few tenths of that of gallium arsenide." Zhan Yiqiang said that last year they had conducted wind turbine experiments on the ground, and this time they will conduct experiments on "Fudan Information Technology" Continue verification on "Star".
The biggest difficulty in researching new photovoltaic technologies is stability. The environment in space is more harsh than that on the ground. For example, the temperature spans widely, fluctuating within a range of about 200 degrees Celsius. "So we constructed a simulated environment on the ground and then optimized the materials accordingly to adapt to the low-orbit space environment."
The School of Information at Fudan University has four first-level disciplines. Zhang Junwen and Zhan Yiqiang are from the communications and electronics disciplines respectively. "Fudan Information Star" itself is the result of multi-disciplinary intersection.
"We have conducted cross-disciplinary research before, but we still lack a very good platform. 'Fudan Information Star' is a good opportunity to enable the latest research results of multiple disciplines to be carried out on the same platform for collaborative verification and system testing. , I hope to produce some real big results in the future.” Zhang Junwen said that this is the first “Fudan Information Star” and is just a prelude. He believes that a series of satellites will be launched in the future to promote the basic science and application research of aerospace information. develop.